Winter Wonderland
by Night Monkey
Summary: Escaping from Arkham in the dead of winter means a long, cold walk back to your secret lair. That walk doesn't get any more pleasant when your fellow escapee can neither keep up nor shut up.


I can't rustle up a pure Christmas fic this year, so this'll have to do.

Hear ye, hear ye: mentions of Scarecrow/Hatter slash. It's very light, but it's there.

* * *

It was like watching a bulldog try to keep up with a greyhound. For every stride the long-in-limb made, his companion had to make three. And though the companion was dedicated, and frightened, and a few time zones away from sane, it became before too long physically impossible for him to stay in step.

"Tetch, what do you think you're doing? We haven't got time to rest!" Crane said, watching the much smaller form of Jervis Tetch sink to the ground, panting and clutching at a stitch in his side.

"It's always tea time," Jervis replied. "Take some more tea, Jonathan."

"No, no quotes, no tea, and no resting. I will not be caught in the open by either police or bats."

"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat. How I wonder—"

Jervis was cut off mid-rhyme as Crane took him by the shoulders and gave him such a severe shake that whiplash became a distinct danger.

"_Move_," Crane hissed, crouching down so he could glare directly into Tetch's eyes as he said it.

Jervis nodded and rose unsteadily to his feet. Crane pivoted and continued down the dark alley. Behind him he could hear Tetch's stumbling footsteps and increasingly ragged breath.

"Jonathan, how much farther?" Jervis asked after a minute or two had passed.

"Seven blocks east, then another four north. Unless the police have set up a perimeter on Kennedy Avenue, as they did during my last escape. Not that it's anything but a mild inconvenience, as I have discovered a network of... Tetch, what are you doing in that puddle?"

"Dying, Jonathan, merely dying."

"You will be dying if you don't get out of there and get back on your dwarfish feet," Crane said.

"If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does."

"If I minded my own business, I would have left you in Arkham to have your face artfully rearranged by the paramilitary units that wretched place tries to pass off as security. If I minded my own business, I would have abandoned you hours ago, when it became _painfully_ apparent you are no faster than an aged tortoise. If I minded my own business, I would never have undertaken this fool's errand!"

Tetch, now soaked to the skin in filthy, freezing pothole water, only nodded in agreement. "As I said, if you minded your own business, your world would go around a great deal faster. I'm far too slow for the caucus race."

"I'm not leaving you to die of hypothermia in a puddle," Crane said. Against his instincts that screamed that escape was in the opposite direction and Tetch was going to get him caught and sent back to Arkham, probably with at least a broken bone or two, Crane walked back to where Jervis lay shivering.

"Can you get up under your own power, or must I drag you out?" Crane asked.

"Why it's simply impassible!"

"Impossible," Crane automatically corrected, and then realized he should have kept his mouth shut.

"No, I do mean impassible. Nothing's impossible," Tetch responded.

"Then prove it and get your dripping self out of that puddle."

Jervis sat up and, like a fish pitched up by the angry sea, flopped onto dry land. His coat—far too large and stolen in the melee and confusion of a massive insane asylum riot—was covered front to back in muck and was doing nothing to keep him warm. The ruined coat had in fact turned traitor and was leeching heat away from the shivering, sodden Hatter.

"Remove your coat," Crane said.

"I'd prefer to keep it," Jervis replied.

"I'm sure you'd prefer not to have your core body temperature dip to dangerous levels even more than you'd prefer keeping that filthy rag."

"But—"

"Take it off, or I will take it off for you."

"I do like that game, Jonathan, but now hardly seems the time or the place."

Crane spun around in a panic as though he expected to see every reporter, gossip columnist, and muckraker in Gotham, plus the FBI armed with long-range parabolic microphones, and maybe even a Department of Defense unmanned drone, listening in and recording everything that was being said. Finding the alley empty somehow didn't calm him much, and not just because it didn't eliminate the chance a drone was soaring undetected ten-thousand feet above him.

"Did you hear something? A Jubjub bird, perhaps? Or the frumious Bandersnatch?" Jervis asked.

"Don't be ridiculous. The only thing I heard is a lunatic who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut when doing so would greatly improve the quality and length of his life!" Crane replied.

"We're all mad here."

"I am _not_ mad!"

"Of course you are. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are."

Proving he was just as mad as Jervis suggested, and squashing any notion that he ought to be counted among the best people, Crane descended on the Hatter like a harpy eagle. He lifted Jervis from the ground and pinned him to the wall. Jervis's feet dangled more than a foot from the cracked pavement of the alley.

"The place we are going is well-stocked with one of my newer and nastier variations of fear toxin. Open your mouth again, especially about _that_, and you will become my latest test subject. There will be very little of you left when the authorities find you," Crane said.

Jervis tried to meet Crane's sharp gaze and found his nerve failing him. Crane's eyes held all the mercy and humanity of the eyes of the Jabberwocky, and Jervis, lacking the vorpal blade, could not face such a creature.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Jervis whispered.

"Nothing to be ashamed of? Not even you can be that naïve," Crane said.

"There's no use hiding it, either. Most everyone already knows, or at least suspects."

Crane paused and then said, "We aren't talking about the same thing, are we? Of course not."

"What are _you_ talking about, Jonathan? I am referring to your definite madness. You see, you must be mad, or you wouldn't have come here. I'm mad. You're mad. Most everyone in Wonderland is mad," Jervis said.

"Yes, Tetch, I suppose most everyone in Wonderland is mad." Crane let go of Jervis's coat and the Hatter tumbled to the ground.

Crane looked down at the crumpled form of the Hatter and couldn't find the energy to be angry with him any longer. There was simply no point to it. Getting furious at Tetch and threatening him was just as wasteful a use of energy and emotion as waving one's fist at a storm cloud that ruined a picnic. Neither could be blamed for their actions, as it was a cloud's nature to rain and Tetch's nature to open his mouth and spout either nonsense or the candid truths of a child.

"You're right, Jervis, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I must be mad, or I wouldn't time and time again find myself in your company."

In an exhibition of kindness he would have shown to no one else, Crane knelt down to the filthy alley floor and took Jervis's hands in his own. He helped the Hatter to his feet. Once Jervis was standing, Crane unbuttoned his coat and discarded it. Jervis shuddered as a gust of wind swirled through the alleyway.

"The sea was wet as wet could be," Jervis said as his teeth began to chatter.

Crane shook his head in disbelief of what he was about to do. His long, nimble fingers unzipped his own coat and he then draped it across the Hatter's shoulders.

"Put it on," Crane said.

"But then you'll freeze!"

"I had the good sense not to lie in a puddle. You'll lose body heat much quicker than I will."

Tetch slipped his arms through the coat's sleeves. He had to roll the sleeves up twice before his hands finally emerged. The hem of the coat nearly touched the ground.

"Come along, Jervis. Only eleven more blocks to go, and the quicker we get there, the quicker we can warm up."

Crane began to walk again, his arms clutched tightly across his chest in an ineffective attempt to hold in heat. At least his hands were warm, tucked into his armpits.

Jervis trotted alongside him, and they maintained the pace for six blocks. As they crossed a deserted intersection, Crane couldn't help but notice he was alone. He looked back and found Tetch clutching a street sign for support.

"We're nearly there!" Crane said.

"I'm sorry, Jonathan, I can't walk another step."

"You damn well better, because I am not going to carry you."

A minute later, the Master of Fear had a passenger riding him piggyback. That settled it. He was completely out of his gourd. Worse yet, he was going soft.

"Thank you, Jonathan," Jervis said to his barely-willing pony.

"You will never speak of this, or I will end you."

"Off with my head?" Jervis asked.

"So much worse than that."

Jervis swallowed nervously and nodded. "I won't breathe a word."

"Good. Now be quiet and let me walk in peace."

Jervis shut his mouth. Then, suddenly thinking of something, he said, "May I say one thing?"

"If it's quick."

"No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise. And you are an excellent porpoise."

"Thank you, I think."

"You're most welcome, Jonathan."

The rest of the trek was passed in silence, except for Jervis humming "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat" under his breath. Crane was merciful and decided not to drop him into a dumpster for it. T'was the season, and all that sentimental nonsense.

* * *

The End

Author's note: Many of Jervis's lines come from the assorted works of Lewis Carroll. I gotta give credit where credit is due.


End file.
